In Another World With My Smartphone: Volume 3 Page 15

  “It’ll be done in a week. That alright with ya?”

  “Sounds great. Thanks a lot. So, how much will that be?”

  “Cash ain’t necessary.”

  Eh? Pardon? Is he saying it’s for free? When you consider the saying ‘there’s no such thing as free lunch’... it makes me think there’ll be a catch. Some things sound too good to be true and all beautiful roses have thorns... Nothing is more expensive than something that’s free, as my grandma used to say.

  “I don’t need money, but could you spare me some of your mithril, instead? Eashen does have hihi’irokane, but mithril is nearly impossible to get. And bringing it over from the west costs and arm and a leg, you know?” Ah, so that’s how it is.

  “I’m okay with that, but I have no clue how much it’s worth, so I have no idea how much I should leave with you.”

  “I see... For now, just leave enough for me to make the katana and short sword. When I’m done, you’ll pay with as much mithril as you think the work deserves.”

  “We’ll go with that, then. Have a good day, now!” I’ll have to research mithril’s market value before the week ends. I opened my [Storage] and took out a chunk of mithril about the size of a softball.

  “Is this enough?”

  “Yep. Bit too much, actually.” He took the mithril in hand and shook it up and down, as if to measure its weight.

  “See you next week, then!”

  “Thank you very much for your patronage!” The blacksmith’s wife waved us goodbye as we took our leave.

  When we arrived at a place with no people, I tried to open a [Gate], but Yae took hold of the hem of my coat and hesitantly looked up at me.

  “U-Umm... c-can it be just the t-two of us... a while longer, can it...?” Her face turned red as her head drooped low.

  Damn it! If we weren’t in town, I’d hug her right here and now! I took Yae’s hand in mine, which made her let out a shy smile, and began walking the streets of Oedo with her.

  ◇　◇　◇

  “What is that, sir?” Lapis inquired about the nature of “that,” which I had made through use of [Modeling].

  On the object, three blades formed a propeller fan contained within a protective cage. The fan was attached to a pole that connected to a round base.

  It was a staple of the summer season, the great electric fan. I was disappointed that I hadn’t been able to make one out of plastic, but mithril did the job well enough due to how light it was.

  “Begin [Program]／ Starting Condition: A switch on the fan is pressed／ Upon Switch Pressed: Spin the fan with the force appropriate to the switch／ End [Program].” I pressed the “Weak” switch on the fan, and it came steadily to life. The fan rotated gently, sending cool air throughout the room.

  “A device for controlling wind, is it? Amazing!”

  “Hrmm...” In contrast to Lapis’ amazement, I felt kind of let down.

  Originally, I had wanted to build a car, but assembling the engine had proved to be way more than I could handle. Having an example of the object I wanted to build sitting in front of me was one thing, but I couldn’t even fathom what purpose half the parts served just from photographs and blueprints alone.

  I understood the basic principles by which car engines worked, but there were too many fiddly bits that I just couldn’t wrap my head around. It all just made my head hurt. I wasn’t even very good with machines in the first place. I’d always been more of a bookworm type, actually. That was why I gave up pretty quickly.

  When I realized that I wouldn’t have any fuel even if I did somehow create a functioning engine, my thoughts briefly switched to building a steam engine instead, but that was another idea that I quickly scrapped.

  The next thing to come to mind was a motor. A motor wasn’t nearly as complex as a car engine, and I felt that I could probably build one. That was when it hit me. I could very likely just use [Program] to achieve the exact same effect.

  To test the idea, I assembled an electric fan without any of the electric parts, then slapped a simple [Program] onto it. That test was currently cooling the room quite successfully. I couldn’t help but feel that [Program] was way too overpowered when it came to this stuff.

  Was science utterly powerless before the all-encompassing might of magic? This wasn’t something that just anyone could make, but it was something that anybody with any amount of magic could use. There were no problems in that regard, but... for some reason, the whole thing had left me feeling kind of listless.

  It was true that even [Program] probably wasn’t strong enough to turn a big box on wheels into a functioning car. Not alone, at least. With the right enchantments, I could probably have pulled it off. It would be like an oversized toy car, though, with no engine noise, no vibration from the motor, no real contents whatsoever.

  The thought drained away all of my motivation, which was why I gave up after building a non-electric fan. It wasn’t like we were in desperate need of a car, anyhow.

  I gave the fan to Lapis and told her to use it as she saw fit. It should’ve at least kept working as long as people fed tiny bits of magic into it every now and then. I looked up at the roof and thought in passing about how a ceiling fan might be a nice addition to the room.

  “Shall we get going, Touya?” Yumina came up to me as I walked out into the garden from the terrace. Was it that time already?

  We were about to depart to meet the king and queen of Belfast, so that I could tell them that I intended to marry their daughter. Technically, we had already been engaged this whole time, but I thought it best to let them know I was serious about it now.

  To think that Yumina would win me over in less than a year... Didn’t think I’d fold so quickly, but I’ve got no regrets.

  “Look, I know I said I’m serious about marrying you and everything now, but... Are they gonna force me to be king at this rate?”

  “Hmm... That seems the most likely outcome, yes. It might turn out different if father or uncle have a son, however.”

  “What about if Sue took a husband... Couldn’t you just make him king instead?” That was about the only other thing I could think of. Taking the throne as king after marrying into royal blood seemed perfectly reasonable. Though really, I’d feel kind of sorry about just forcing all that responsibility on them in my place.

  “That certainly would be one option, if not for one simple fact.”

  “What’s that, then?”

  “Well, Sue loves you too, after all. I’d say she’s the most likely to become the fifth.”

  “...The fifth?”

  She said it so casually that it made me pause for a moment. The fifth... No, that can’t be right. That can’t be what she’s talking about, right?

  “Well, it doesn’t seem like that will be anytime soon, at any rate. But, say maybe three, four years down the line? She’ll probably approach you about it, so you should brace yourself for that while you can.”

  “Nah, I think you’re just overthinking it. Sue doesn’t have any siblings, right? I’m sure she just sees me as like an older brother or something.”

  “...It seems I’ll need to prepare myself for a lot of this, too...” Yumina sighed, apparently having given up on some fundamental aspect of my personality. What? What’s the issue here?

  “The only other way to find someone else to take the throne would be if we, you know, had a son together, or something...” Yumina trailed off. She kept staring at me, which only made her blush with greater intensity.

  Damn it, now you’re making me turn bright red, too! It’s because you started talking about us having kids all of a sudden!

  “Sh-Shall we proceed?”

  “Y-Yes. We shall.” Barely even holding a conversation anymore, we walked out into the garden, and I opened up a [Gate] to take us to the castle.

  “I see! Well, that’s wonderful news! I’m glad to hear that Yumina’s won over your heart. How truly joyous indeed!” The king of Belfast leaned forward and shot me a great, b
ig, happy smile. Queen Yuel took her daughter’s hands in her own and smiled gently at her.

  “You’ve done well for yourself, Yumina. From now on, you only need to worry about how best to support Touya as his wife.”

  “Yes, Mother!” The king rose from his chair and gave me a jolly old pat on the shoulder. He was really over the moon with this news.

  “All I need to wait for now is the day I get to see my grandchildren! I imagine it’ll be hard satisfying four wives, but you do your best, you hear me?”

  Do my best at what? Do you even realize what you’re saying, Your Majesty?

  “Look, I’m saying I intend to marry her, not that we’re getting married right away. All of that’s on hold until I turn eighteen, at the very least.”

  “Even if the wedding’s still a while off, it’s not like that’s stopping you from making me some grandkids! After all, Yumina’s already started her— Mhrf?!” Yumina’s fist smashed magnificently into the king’s solar plexus, making him double over. She definitely just used [Accel] against him...

  “Father, you don’t just casually mention things like that!” Yumina was bright red and exhaling heavily. Groveling at her feet, his face pale and writhing in pain, was His Royal Majesty the King of Belfast, the most important man in the country. You reap what you sow. Even if she is your own daughter, that was pretty much sexual harassment. Definitely shouldn’t be saying those kinds of things out loud.

  “I’m sorry about my husband. He’s just so excited to hear the news, you see.” Queen Yuel apologized in her husband’s place. It wasn’t a bad thing to be excited, I just felt that he was getting excited about all the wrong things.

  “Now really, how should we handle this... There are plenty who know of the situation already, but it might still be a bit soon to announce this to the public.”

  “How come?”

  “First of all, you’d definitely be targeted by nobles who had thought to marry into the royal family. On the other end of the scale, you have those who would try to win your favor early for political reasons or the like. In addition to that, there are those stubborn few who would stand firmly against the whole thing unless you showed suitable accomplishments in the name of the country.” None of what she said sounded fun in the least. It all just served to remind me how marrying a princess was kind of a big deal.

  Accomplishments in the name of the country? Basically, they’d want me to prove that I’d be a beneficial asset to the country before they’d approve of me?

  “Let’s keep word of this to ourselves for a while longer. Announcing it too early would lead to a lot of unwanted trouble, so it may be best to keep it a secret for as long as possible and then announce your betrothal just shortly before the wedding itself.” Seems like I’ll have to do my best as well if I want to live up to all of this... I’ll become a worthy partner for Yumina.

  I left Yumina with her parents and headed in the direction of the training grounds. I was hoping to catch Elze there, but it seemed my hope was in vain. She was nowhere to be found. The sounds of mock battles spread out across the training ground. It was honestly pretty exciting to watch. Sort of reminded me of the feeling of watching a sports match. There were a lot of knights out training, as well.

  “You there, cur. What are you doing here?” I turned to face the voice, and found myself looking at a group of young men. There seemed to be about ten of them. They didn’t look too far from my age. Well, maybe one or two of them were a little older. I couldn’t say for sure, really. I wondered if they were knights, too.

  “Yes, mongrel, I meant you. I don’t recognize your face. Which house are you the servant of? You know this training ground is an exclusive area, don’t you? You should really take more care where you wander.”

  “Oh, no. It’s nothing like that. I’m just looking around for a friend of mine. I thought she was here.”

  A young man standing at the head of the group, one with short golden-blond hair, spoke up. He spoke in a haughty, arrogant tone of voice, as if he was looking down on me for whatever reason. It seemed to me that he had the wrong impression. I figured the best thing to do would be to correct him and move on.

  “And which friend might this be?”

  “Oh, do you think he’s referring to that lowborn woman? The one who accompanies General Leon so often these days.” A redheaded boy in the back answered the blondie’s question. That sounded about right. Elze did prefer to spar with Leon after all.

  “Oh. That girl... Haaa... trying to curry favor with the general, are we? Truly those of lower birth have no integrity at all, pathetic...” The one to speak up this time was a brown-haired boy standing next to Redhead. He had a smug grin plastered on his face.

  “I see. This one must be trying to join the army too. He’s using that girl as a foot in the door.”

  “This military won’t get anywhere unless someone sets it straight. Frankly, it’d be better if we didn’t allow commoners to serve at all. They have no sense of chivalry, unlike us proud sons of the noble houses.” The group of boy-knights threw their heads back in raucous laughter. I turned on my heel to leave, as they were seriously annoying me.

  “Actually... could it be that the girl is your woman?”

  “And what if she is?” I paused to answer the brown-haired teen, who decided to yell after me. His shrill laughter was driving me mad with irritation.

  “In that case, if you’re looking for her, why not look in the general’s bed? I’m sure she’s there right about now, moaning like the lowborn dog she is!”

  I didn’t let him continue his budding tirade. Before Brown-hair knew it, my fist was in his face. He fell to the ground, clutching at himself. Blood pooled from his nose, and a few of his teeth were scattered across the floor. I turned and kicked him hard in the side, just for good measure.

  “Ghaugh! Whhuh... what are you doing?!”

  “I’m clearly beating the hell out of you. What, do you need me to spell it out?” Brown-hair was on the floor, rolling in pain as he clutched his side. He still managed to yell at me, though. I kicked him again. Harder.

  If he had just mocked me, I’d have been able to let it go. But I wasn’t the kind of person who could stand around and let the people precious to him be slandered. It was like my grandpa always said. If you need to beat on someone, then beat them savagely without hesitation.

  “You scum! That’s the second son of the distinguished Barrow family! You dare lay a hand on—”

  “Shut it. You’re making a racket. Why does his family matter right now? It’s not like he, or you for that matter, have anything great about you as individuals. You’re just lazy little shits who rest on the laurels of their family crests, right?”

  “How dare you!” The young knights quickly surrounded me in a circle. They all pulled out their blades. I could tell they weren’t messing around. They were clearly set on harming, if not killing, me.

  “So you’ve drawn your swords on me. You understand what that means, right? The only ones who should aim to kill are those who are prepared to be killed.”

  “Silence, commoner!” One of the boys charged at me with a slash, but his form was poor. Geez, that’s almost embarrassingly bad. Have any of these guys done any actual training?

  “Safety Mode.” In accordance to my words, Brunhild extended into a longsword with a dulled, rounded blade. Nothing sharp at all on this bad boy. This was a new form I’d added to my weapon, for safety purposes. Well... maybe safety wasn’t quite the right term for it. If I decided to swing it at full power it could definitely crush someone’s bones. Anyway, I charged at another incoming swordsman, wielding Brunhild.

  “Gah!” The boy stumbled and collapsed to the ground. Too many openings, punk. I could beat you blindfolded.

  The “knights” watched as their friend was knocked down, and began to hesitate in their movements. Pathetic.

  “Everyone charge in at once! Slash him at the same time!” Blondie barked out an order. Guess that made him their le
ader. Still, was he a total moron? What kind of chump yelled out his strategy before using it?

  I decided to attack them before they made their move. Their attacks were so telegraphed that dodging was trivial. I was easily able to strike three of them in the belly, the chest, and the arm. They went down like a sack of bricks.

  The others saw my motion and began to seize up in fear. They were absurdly miserable people.

  I swung my weapon without putting too much effort into it, and before long they were all down for the count. All except Blondie. The last man standing.

  “E-Eek! Auuuugh!!!” Blondie started screaming like a little girl, turned tail, and ran away as fast as he could. Some chivalry and honor you’ve got there. Really shows when you abandon your allies and turn your back on the enemy.

  “Gun Mode.” I returned Brunhild to its gun form, then fired off a bullet. Pow.

  “Gwuhh?!” I couldn’t be bothered to chase after him, so I just fired a paralyzing round into his back. Blondie fell to the floor with a crash, then stopped moving entirely. Guess that’s that... Now, where was I?

  “Eek!” The only one still conscious was Brown-hair, lying down in a pool of his own fluids. I couldn’t possibly forgive him for saying what he did about Elze.

  “Could you leave it at that, please?” I looked up for the source of the sudden voice, and caught sight of two older knights standing nearby. I recognized one of them, but the other was an older gentleman with silvery hair. He looked about forty.

  “Lyon...!”

  “What’s up, Sir Touya. Long time no see.” The handsome young gent raised his hand to me in a wave. It was Lyon, the good knight that had accompanied us to Mismede. General Leon’s son.

  “D-Deputy General, sir! Th-This lout came out of nowhere, a-and he... he...!” Brown-hair pointed at me, seemingly addressing the silver-haired man next to Lyon. Deputy general?

  “...Boy. Do you think my eyes blind to the trouble you and your friends cause for the townspeople? You think my ears deaf to the concern regarding your names?” The silver-haired man let out a deep voice, devoid of emotion. He was staring directly at the brown-haired kid. In response, the boy stiffened up in fear and fell silent. It seemed this kind of attitude wasn’t a new thing for them. So they definitely were the kind of people who thought they could do whatever they wanted... I found that kind of person very irritating.